Small Business Finance Association To Unveil White Paper

The Small Business Finance Association (“SBFA”) will soon publicly unveil a set of guiding industry principles, AltFinanceDaily has learned, and they’ll fall under four broad categories that espouse transparency, responsibility, fair dealings and security.

Transparency will not just be about the disclosure of fees but also likely about the disclosure of process, methodology, and application rejection, among others.

The principles of fair dealings are unlikely to touch on pricing or costs. Instead they will be about a commitment to being truthful and fair in dealings with small businesses. That is sure to include marketing materials that are clear and understandable, an area that will undoubtedly extend out to the brokers they work with, if any.

While responsibility will speak to the notion of being a legally compliant good citizen when it comes to dealing with customers, security will be more than just the use of an SSL Certificate to access the website. Verifying the business’s legitimacy and confirming the owner’s identity are high on the list of a secure process, AltFinanceDaily has learned.

SBFA members already adhere to a set of standards and have since the group was formed eight years ago. Their new white paper will serve to codify them in a way that others can adopt and conduct themselves to accordingly.

The white paper will be the first major achievement of the organization since Stephen Denis came on as the executive director in mid-December. Denis is the former deputy staff director of the U.S. House Committee on Small Business.

“The goal is to start from scratch and take a look at everything the association is doing,” Denis said in AltFinanceDaily’s previous magazine issue, “and to really build this out to a robust group that represents the interests of small businesses.”

In another interview conducted for that story, SBFA president and founder David Goldin explained that he had been troubled by misconceptions over the industry’s prices. “Most people don’t understand the economics of our business,” he said.

The SBFA also plans to revamp their website in the near future.

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future AltFinanceDaily events here.